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Multimodality & generation

Provenance & watermarking

Also called: content credentials, C2PA, marking AI content

DEFINITION

Methods for signalling that media was AI-generated or edited — visible labels, embedded watermarks, or attached provenance metadata that records how a file was made.

WHY IT MATTERS

As synthetic images, audio, and video get harder to spot by eye, provenance is a main technical answer to 'is this real?' — and transparency duties increasingly expect generated content to be marked.

COMMONLY CONFUSED WITH

A reliable detector of fakes. Watermarks can be stripped or absent, and 'no watermark' doesn't mean genuine — provenance helps when present but isn't a guarantee either way.